William Paley

Evidences of Christianity (Dodo Press) William Paley

William Paley (1743 -1805) was a British divine, Christian apologist, utilitarian, and philosopher. He is best remembered for his watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of God in his book Natural Theology (1802). The Evidences of Christianity (1794) is mainly a condensation of Bishop Douglas's Criterion and Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. But the task is so judiciously performed that it would probably be difficult to get a more effective statement of the external evidences of Christianity than Paley has here presented. His idea of revelation depends upon the same mechanical conception of the relation of God to the world which dominates his Natural Theology. Paley is best remembered for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, utilitarian ethics and Christian apologetics. In 1802 he published Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, his last book. As he states in the preface, he saw the book as a preamble to his other philosophical and theological books; in fact, he suggests that Natural Theology should be first and so that his readers could then peruse his other books according to their tastes. His main goal was to suggest that the world was designed and sustained by God. Such a book fell within the long tradition of natural theological works written during the Enlightenment; and this explains why Paley based much of his thought on Ray (1691) and Derham (1711) and Nieuwentyt (1730).